FC St. Gallen

Well, let me tell you every thing I know about my club... and lets begin with the historic...

FC St. Gallen has been etablished on 19. April 1879. So we're the oldest existing football club outside the UK ... (There are older clubs like 1860 Munich, but they started with other sports first. for example swimming, etc)...

The club wasnt very succesfull during all the years so we only won two championships (1904, 2000), once the cup (1969) and once the league cup (1978)... The fans of the club are called "Espen" because of the name of the stadium Espenmoos. The club played there for 98 years, from 1910 to 2008! In Juny our new stadium, the commercial AFG Arena, has opened its gates. It has a capacity of 20'000 and is as modern as Alvalade...

The biggest year in the history of FC St. Gallen were the years from 1999-2001, when the team was sensational swiss champion in front of other clubs liker Grasshoppers or Basel. Marcel Koller (hes now coach of the german Bundesliga club Vfl Bochum) formed a new team with unknown players and focussed them on things like teamspirit, etc... so it was a very suprising year and nobody had bet on St. Gallen. The team could commit in the Champions League qualification, where they played against Galatsaray... Well, the failed... after a 1:2 at home, we played a 2:2 draw in turkey... Then the biggest highlight ever came: In the first round of Uefa Cup we've kicked Chelsea London out of the tournament. We lost at Stamford Bridge with 1:0 but we turned score at home (St. Gallen had to play its international games in Zurich beacause of the old Espenmoos) an won 2:0 against stars like Panucci, Zola, Di Matteo... The out in the Uefa cup came in the 2nd round, when we failed in the last minute against Brügge from Belgium...

2001 we were third in the swiss championship (we had the chance to defend the title until the last day in the league) and played international against Pelister Bitola, Steaua Bukarest and failed against the german club SC Freiburg... was a hard game... we won first in Freiburg with 1:0 and lost at home with 1:4...

In 2002 the team appeared in UI-Cup... after eliminating the faroer club Torshavn... we were kicked out in overtime by Willem II from Netherlands... and this was the end of our international period... we came in to trouble in our league for years and had had to fight against relegation till 2008, when we had to go a division deeper... :'(

2006/07 was a good year... the club was leader after 10 rounds played... but in the second half year the played 11 draws... so that we fell back on 5th place of super league, so that we could appear on ui cup 2007/08 again. and this was the beginning of the end: there was a spectacular defeat in the second round against the moldavian club Dacia Chisinau ... and after this we had a catastrophal start into the season (we lost our first 5 games)...

In December 2007 Krassimir Balakov has been presented as our new head couch... but he couldnt help us seriously: till the end of the year we came away from the last place in the classement, but we had to play two relegation games (they are called Barrage in Switzerland) against AC Bellinzona - a club from the south part of the country, where they speak italian. We lost the last game ever in Espenmoos with 2:0, so we had to go one liga deeper into challenge league... Balakov has been fired just after a little more than half a year... We had to notice, that he isnt as good as trainer as he as player was... before he came to St. Gallen made the fans of Grasshoppers the same experiences with him... in Zurich he had changed the hole team and produced 40 (!) transfers in one a half years....

Actually we play the first time since 1993 in challenge league now: We are the biggest club in this division and we've won our first five games without any problems... the fans are very enthusiastic... and we have a average attendance of more than 13 000 !!! We are on our way back... and who knows: may be we're gonna play on an international tournament again!!!

Balakov... how we miss him!! He was one of the finest players that ever played for Sporting. He is still a huge fan of Sporting. He is dearly missed.

“no small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores.”Herman Melville - Moby Dick

The most famous player, who played in St. Gallen ist without doubt Ivan Zamorano. He started his career in europe in St. Gallen, in the eastern part of Switzerland...

He scored and scored and scored... 35 goals in a little more than a year... he was the topskorer of the league and famous for his header... We called him "Ivan der Schreckliche" - Ivan, the terrible one... He changed 1990 to Sevilla... and played also for Real Madrid and Inter Milan... a great guy... this year he came back for a revival match against the profis from today...

An other very good-known guy is Tranquillo Barnetta... He came 2002 in our first team (as a u17 european champion with Switzerland) when he was only 17 years old... He stayed for two years and was also in the national squad for the Euro in Portugal, but he didnt play... After the Euro 2004 he has been transfered to Bayer Leverkusen... hes still there and hes the most important player there and in the swiss national team... he promised us, that he will come back to St. Gallen one day...

Marco Tardelli played also for a season in St. Gallen (1987/88). He was world champion with Italy in 1984...

Other good-known players are Jörg Stiel who was a player of the champions team 2000 and later Bundesliga keeper in Mönchengladbach. He was our national keeper on Euro 2004.

Hakan Yakin played also a season for the Espen... dont have to tell mutch about him.. he changed clubs very often... and scored two goals against Portugal on this Euro...

Well, there are of course a lot other great players like... Charles Amoah (topskorer in 2000), Ratinho (german champion with Kaiserslautern in 1998), or José Cardozo, on of the best players from Paraguay ever...

At the moment there is on portuguese in our team: Zé Vitor came this winter from Nacional Funchal to us... he scored against Benfica in the last season... i've checked my guia de football...

Hey dude, we hope now that we opened the International Lounge where each "outsider" fan can show his interest in Sporting or even let us know everything about your clubs. We also hope that from now on more people can participate in our Forum, maybe when we play against anyone in CL or Uefa Cup or because of interest in Sporting Clube Portugal.

Have a nice stay!

Sorry for my worse english, but i did not talk or even write english for a long time. Need more practice

Yea, he s just great, a very sympathic person... he speaks english, too - so i have much contact with him cos i'm writing match reports for some local newspapers and the homepage of me and my friends, which is called www.fcsg.info...

In Portugal, some teams in 1st division put only 1000 spectators at the stadium...

Hehe, yeah we know this... but St. Gallen is very special. In fact we are one of the biggest clubs in the country and the hole eastern part of Switzerland is standing behind the club...

Vaduz came up to first Division this year... They have an average of 2500 spectators... so you see, Vaduz for St. Gallen was a bad change... and there is on other special thing about FCV... they arent swiss, they are from Liechtenstein! So a club from another country plays in our highest league... and there are some special rules for them: they cant get swiss champion and they dont participate in our cup. The have their own cup tournament in Liechtenstein for getting their ticket to the Uefa Cup Qualification... and there they play against other teams from Liechtenstein, which are playing in the 5. or 6. swiss division...very cheap...

St. Gallen is situated in the east of Switzerland, near the lake of Constance...The town had 75'000 inhabitants this January... the Canton of St. Gallen - this is the smiliar to a district - is one of the biggest five in the country...Switzerland has little more than 7,5 Million inhabitants... last year lived about 170'000 from Portugal; mostly the live in the western part and are concentrated to Geneva...

To the Football League... so you can search them on the map G means (Swiss)German, F for French and I for Italian.:Super League: FC Basel (G), BSC Young Boys Bern (G), FC Zürich (G), Grasshoppers Zürich (G), FC Sion (F), FC Luzern (G), Neuchâtel (Neuenburg) Xamax (F), FC Aarau (G), FC Bellinzona (I) and FC Vaduz (G, they are from Liechtenstein and not on the map)...

I Hope you get promoted really fast an hopefully in the future I will be able to come see a game at Your Stadium against Sporting for CL, it would be great!!!The Stadium looks very beautifull and confortable.